LA teacher’s home burned to the ground, please help!

The Eaton fire in Los Angeles sparked to life on the night of Tuesday January 7th 2025. Extreme winds caused the small blaze to explode into a monstrous hellstorm. At my friend Kate’s home in Altadena, the power went out.

Within a few short hours there was so much debris flying around outside that it started to block her street. She and her family evacuated, thinking, ‘it’s okay, we’ll be back in a couple of days.’

The next day Kate received a photo of smoke where their home had been. She wrote,

“Our house is gone.

There’s a chimney.

And a cactus.

And a part of a wall.

And a completely altered car.

Tomorrow it will all hit me. Right now I’m still numb.”

Kate is a dedicated public school teacher, and has been since 1997. She teaches 2nd grade in East LA, which is where we met.

Kate is exactly the kind of teacher that we all want our children to have in elementary school. Every day she does everything she can to make sure every one of her kids is seen and supported and successful. Mrs. K radiates calm and kindness, even in the most chaotic conditions. Working at a Title 1 highest poverty school in a vast district presents unique challenges, but Kate’s infinite patience with her young scholars is never exhausted. She’s amazing.

In 2008 Kate and her husband Brandon managed to achieve the most impossible dream for anyone living in Los Angeles...

They bought a house.

Even back then the small place in Altadena was incredibly expensive. No, it wasn’t very close to their jobs, and yes, it certainly did stretch the term ‘fixer-upper’ to its limit. Everything needed to be repaired and restored, but still, it was theirs.

That cozy little home on Glenrose Ave is where their two beautiful daughters Corita and Willa grew up, with their loving parents bandaging scraped knees and soothing tantrums and reading thousands upon thousands of bedtime stories. Within those walls the four of them happily shared all of life’s highs and lows for almost 17 years…

.. until Tuesday January 7th when the merciless Eaton fire drove them out of their home and consumed everything they owned. By the time it was gone only charred bits of their lives remained.

We’ve all seen the shocking and horrific pictures and videos, we all want to help.

Here’s a concrete way that you can have a direct impact on an amazing family: a $30 donation would honor Kate’s 28 years of service as a teacher and cover all fees.

Every dime of every dollar you give will help this family replace those things that are replaceable– and they need everything from socks to spoons, from furniture to a fridge, from clothing to comfort.

Please donate, please share this.

on behalf of Kate, Brandon, Corita, and Willa, THANK YOU, with my whole heart

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Here is how you can verify that Kate and I and this story are real.

On the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing website you can click on Search for an Educator, then Public Search, and then enter Kahler-Rickman as the last name. Kate’s credentials dating back to when she started teaching, and the district in which she’s currently employed, are public info.

You can see the location of their home on the fire maps on the Watch Duty app: it’s on Glenrose Ave north of Ventura St in Altadena, California, 91001.

You can also look her up on whitepages, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram.

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My name is Amy Owen, and I am organizing this fundraiser for my friend Kate Kahler-Rickman with her permission. 100% of all donations go straight to her.

You can verify me by looking up my current and past teaching credentials on the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing site. Click on Search for an Educator, then Public Search, and then enter my name. There are 3 Amys Owen listed, I’m the second one - Amy Katherine Owen.

I’m also on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, bluesky, and twitter (I'm no longer active there but I've had an account since 2009).

If you have any questions please feel free to contact me but fair warning- I'm both chatty and persuasive.

THANK YOU!! Please share this. Biggest hugs to you and yours.